


Land of a Thousand Words

by feebomon



Category: ER (TV 1994)
Genre: Extended Scene, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23568700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feebomon/pseuds/feebomon
Summary: I'm on the run to wherever you are.
Relationships: John Carter/Luka Kovač
Kudos: 9





	Land of a Thousand Words

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to/in the same universe as 'The Congo'.

Land of a Thousand Words

Another constellation dies  
Do what you want 'cause it's your own sky  
Just call me when the phone stops ringing  
Thanks for coming by  
I'm just glad I'm on your good side  
Where it's smoldering or freezing  
It's never all that easy to decide

This is the land of a thousand words  
But it seems so few are worth the breath to say  
Except I'll be looking after my own world  
And you just keep on saving the day  
I'll try to stay but it's in vain when you're far  
I'm on the run to wherever you are

And that's the nature of the chase  
You fall so far behind you end in first place  
Pass the torch this time we're running to each his own regret  
There's no harm in playing hard to get  
Boundlessness deceives me  
Baby you may turn the corner yet

This is the land of a thousand words  
But it seems so few are worth the breath to say  
Except I'll be looking after my own world  
And you just keep on saving the day  
I'll try to stay but it's in vain when you're far  
I'm on the run to wherever you are

I'm a gonna do everything I say  
Tried to stay but time's running out  
But now I'm on my way

* * *

"When will we get the body back? Or are there ways and means for that to be arranged?"

The body.

He'd just called Luka 'the body'. Somehow he maintained a reasonably calm exterior, but tears were near the surface, and he had to swallow hard around the hurt that uttering that sentence had caused.

***

He had known as soon as he saw Abby's face. He couldn't hear what Malik was telling her but her reaction told him everything. In a daze he found himself phoning up to book a flight, packing medical supplies and then making his way to O'Hare. When he had told Kerry that Luka was staying in Africa she had been angry, but she hadn't said a word as John strode out of the hospital with a heavy bag and an ashen face. Maybe she understood.

On the plane he listened to his iPod, trying to sleep as much as possible, trying to stop his mind going over and over the last few days he had spent in Luka's company - in his arms and in his bed - and then their unsettled, angry parting. He fell into conversation with a man from the Kinshasa embassy. He asked what was the reason for John's visit. John barely registered the words coming out of his mouth, they sounded strange and twisted, his shell-shocked brain in no state to interpret them. "A friend of mine was killed, I'm going to bring him home." The exchange had died soon after that, and after another few minutes, John ripped his headphones off and staggered to the bathroom, vomiting the scant amount of aeroplane food he had managed to eat earlier into the toilet bowl. A few deep, heaving breaths later, he realised he was crying.

***

Things happen at their own pace in Africa, John knew it and was tired of it. He and Gillian had been been to office after office at the American Embassy, getting no answers. But now, speaking to the man from the Red Cross, he thought they might get somewhere. John's hands shook as he held Luka's ID, the laminated surface creased and dirty and smeared with rusty red spots and smudges that made his heart constrict. Finally, with a place and a time to work with, they set out in Gillian's truck.

***

The first site they went to, the clinic nearest to Luka's last known whereabouts, was destroyed. It was a shell of a building, appearing as though it had been abandoned years rather than days ago. The only sign of life had been the wall of buzzing flies they had confronted. John covered his mouth and nose, yet his eyes watered as he surveyed the destruction. There were maybe a dozen bodies, but all of them were Congolese. A wave of relief surged through him, but it was short-lived. Luka was dead, they just hadn't found his body yet.

Back at the clinic, John just had time to push some rice around a plate before succumbing to exhaustion. Lying down on one of the hard camp beds and staring up at the hanging mosquito net, John couldn't help it as his mind wandered, forcing him to think about what might have been Luka's last few hours. As he wondered, the hollow feeling that was taking over his chest spread sickeningly. He knew how cruel and merciless the mai-mai could be, and thoughts of Luka in pain, or face down in the dirt, played feverishly over and over in his head. John rolled over and buried his face in the flattened pillow, desperately trying to block the images, but only succeeding in turning this thoughts to their time together. Caught by surprise by a dry sob, John hoped with all his heart that Luka hadn't regretted anything about their brief time together, from their first tentative kiss to the night they almost slept together. John had fallen asleep wrapped up in Luka's arms despite the heat, and only now realised that the tender kiss Luka had pressed to his forehead as he was dozing had made him fall in love. 

The next morning they drove on, barely speaking, both struggling with their thoughts and fears. Another abandoned building - this one had been a school, now it was the most basic kind of mortuary. Fighting through the choking stench, bile rose as he spotted a bruised and dirty white arm, almost obscured by another body. Feeling his stomach churn violently, he pushed the body out of the way, preparing himself as best he could for the sight of his dead friend... The man's face was bearded, and it was a few seconds before John could shout to Gillian, barely keeping the awful triumph from his voice.

"This isn't him!"

"What?!"

"This isn't Luka!"

Scrambling to his feet, John demanded to know where the rest of the people in that group had been taken, holding up Luka's ID, desperate for any sign of recognition on the soldiers' faces. He got one.

"Oui, Il est prêtre."

"What?"

Gillian looked as confused as he was. "He's saying Luka is a priest."

"A what?"

"A priest!"

John was dumbfounded, hearing the words but not even beginning to understand them. Had they been chasing after the wrong dead man for the past two days, or did these soldiers really believe that Luka had been a priest? He tried to get more information out of the soldier, forcing Gillian to ask the same questions again and again. All he got was another sparse lead, a location of another temporary camp that in all probability would have collapsed into vandalised disuse like all the others they had visited.

Once they were back in the van, John helped himself to one of Gillian's cigarettes as she started up the engine, tires spinning on dust for a few seconds before they sped away from the terrible, disappointing scene. The smoke tasted cleaner than the air he had been breathing for the past week. The calm inhaling cleared his head a little as he looked out of the window.

"We will find him," he said, to no one in particular. He didn't look round, but knew Gillian was looking at him with that telling look of heartbroken compassion he had seen on her face when she talked to parents of dying, dehydrated children. He wanted to break things.

He was being shaken. With a grunt he awoke properly, with no memory of having fallen asleep in the first place. The sun was a little lower in the sky. "Huh-?"

"We're here."

John rubbed his gritty eyes and looked around. They got out of the truck and cautiously walked a little closer to the small camp. They saw with amazement that it was still inhabited, smoke was rising from a small fire and signs of life were dotted around the clearing. A man who had been watching their approach with equal caution finally dashed out to meet them, speaking rapidly so that Gillian struggled to understand him at first.

"They have some patients they'd like us to see, they need medicines. I told him we don't have any..."

John was already nodding, eager to try and do some good for what seemed like the first time in months.

In the tent, Gillian spoke to a woman whose head wound seemed to be healing surprisingly well. She changed the bandage and spoke reassuringly before moving on. Three orphaned children played with John's iPod as he communicated as best he could with a man whose broken leg that had healed, but had left him with a limp. After another few minutes he surveyed the scene, and his stomach and heart seemed to simultaneously drop and rise as he spotted a woman he recognised. She held the little girl who Luka had saved after the bomb blast. John remembered how he watched, fascinated and in awe as Luka had amputated, tied off and stitched pretty much single-handedly. He shook himself and launched himself at the surprised woman, shoving Luka's ID in her face, begging her to recognise him and try to remember what happened to him. She looked at John, then over at a corner of the tent. Confused, yet feeling himself fill up with a dreadful kind of hope, John followed her gaze, and saw a pair of dirty white feet sticking out from behind a rack of tattered clothes. Leaping up, John almost fell over himself as he approached the body, tears already building and stinging behind his eyes. 

Luka's face was pale, the contrast made greater by bruises and smears of dust and dried blood, his cheeks slightly hollowed from the weeks of working too hard and eating too little. A trick of the light that slanted across Luka's face made it seem like his eyelids fluttered for a fraction of a second. When it happened again, John fell to his knees beside him, too overcome for a moment to say anything.

"He's alive! He's still alive!"

John's voice cracked and he placed his hands on Luka's chest, choking on emotion as he felt an erratic heartbeat and shallow breaths. The rational portion of his brain told him that Luka looked terribly ill; anaemic and on the edge of a coma, more than likely suffering from advanced malaria and dehydration, but everything else, every scrap of his being believed that he would save him and bring him home.


End file.
